Chương 128: Chapter 118: Good Boy

Lira gave the dog a couple more pets, as well as another piece of jerky. A few of the passersby gave her strange looks, but none of them interacted with her. She did not much care. They could think of her as someone wasting perfectly good jerky on a stray, so long as they did not realize she had used magic to heal him. Besides, he was a good boy. Somewhere during their interaction, the dog had ceased to be an it and become a he in Lira's mind.

After another moment, the dog suddenly took off running, this time deeper into the junkyard. Lira was disappointed at first, but then she shrugged. It was not as if she could keep him in the library, even if she had wanted to. She decided to move on and find her next target. It took her a few minutes of searching. Most of the animals she found seemed to have old wounds that had already healed and were scarred over, and Lira doubted her spell would work on those.

The wound needed to be open for Riveth to have anything to work with, at least as far as she understood it. As for disease, she did not even know how to spot it unless it was something particularly obvious. A sick animal could look perfectly healthy until it was already dead. Finally, she found a suitable target. A cat sat beneath a collapsed pile of wooden crates, one side of its face bloody and the tip of one ear completely torn in half.

The wound was fresh enough, and though it was neither lethal nor even particularly debilitating, it was not something that would ever heal naturally without being stitched back into place. Lira slowly drew closer. The cat immediately hissed at her. It rose onto its toes, fur puffed out, making itself look larger than it actually was. Lira stopped in her tracks. The cat was too wary of her and looked ready to bolt at the slightest movement.

She considered distracting it with a piece of jerky, but that would mean getting close enough to offer it the food, and she doubted she would have enough time to cast before it ran. So she decided to just go for it.

"Yorad. Cipos. Kalaba. Riveth. Hano." The cat flinched, its ears flattening against its head, and bolted anyway before Lira could see whether the spell had worked. Lira swore under her breath and ran after it. She weaved between the junk piles, ducking around a stack of broken furniture until she caught sight of the cat again. It had crouched beneath a broken cart, its eyes fixed on her from the shadows. Lira immediately slowed. An old man carrying a bundle of scrap copper passed beside her.

She stopped beside the cart and pretended to examine a pile of discarded metal, hoping to look like she had not been chasing a cat through the junkyard. The old man gave her a strange look. Lira suspected he was wondering whether she intended to eat the cat or something. She could not help but wonder what her superiors at the palace would think if they saw her running after strays in a junkyard. Celene and Darwin would probably be horrified.

Though Lira suspected that Old Marga, on the other hand, would approve of where some of her jerky had ended up. Once she was alone again, Lira crouched down and tried to get a better look at the cat. She managed to get close enough to see its ear properly without alarming it too much. The cat was cleaning itself, working its tongue over one paw before using it to scratch at the side of its face. The dried blood was still there, though it had been greatly reduced.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. The wound had closed. Where the tear had been, the flesh had scabbed over completely, both edges pulled together and sealed rather than left gaping as they had been before. But the fur had not grown back yet, and looking closer, Lira doubted it ever would. Not on that exact patch, at least. A scar would remain for sure, though it would probably be small enough to be easily missed. Well, the spell did close wounds.

It did not undo them. Her contemplation was interrupted by a sharp bark that sent the cat bolting once more. Lira turned and, to her surprise, the dog was back. He planted himself a few feet away and barked at her directly.

"Do you want more jerky, good boy?" she asked. But he stopped barking the moment he got her attention and started walking away, glancing back over his shoulder every few steps. When she did not react, he turned around, trotted back, and barked at her again. Lira tilted her head in confusion.

"What do you want, good boy?" He barked twice, then started walking away before turning back toward her and barking once. His tail was wagging the entire time.

"Do you want me to follow you?" He barked once. She stood up and took a few steps in his direction, and he immediately spun around and set off at a trot, tail still going, glancing back constantly to make sure she was still coming. Lira decided to indulge him. She had read enough books claiming that dogs were as smart as human children, and if a child insisted that she follow him, she would naturally do, well unless it was an obvious set up for being robbed, Lira knew how to spot one of those.

He led her around two junk piles and behind a collapsed table, to where a second dog lay curled on its side, barely lifting its head as they approached. Lira did not have to be a healer to understand what was wrong with it. It looked too weak to move. Because of that, it had ended up defecating too close to where it slept, which most animals would not do. What was more horrifying was the stool itself. It was liquid, and Lira did not need to cast Small Life Watch to see the invaders responsible for it.

Worms wriggled in the brown liquid, dozens of them at least, tangled together in a way that made her stomach turn just looking at it. She did not hesitate before casting the Cure Disease spell.

"Yorad. Kalaba. Cipos. Luneth. Velar." The reaction was more subdued than the bone spell had been. The sick dog's ears twitched, and its whole body gave a single, full-length shudder. It lay still for a moment afterward, breathing slowly and evenly. Then it lifted its head properly, blinked, and pushed itself up onto its feet as if life had just been breathed into it. The first dog was on the second immediately, tail a blur, nosing and licking at its snout until the sick dog gave a few licks back in return.

Within seconds, the two of them were running loops around the collapsed table together, yipping, thoroughly delighted with each other and with existing in general. Lira sat back on her heels and watched them go, letting herself feel pleased for a moment. Three for three. The last spell, though, she had no idea how to test it, short of bleeding the animal herself. With one look at the celebrating dogs, she decided she was firmly against it.

If a dog was smart enough to understand that she had somehow healed it, then brought her to another animal in need, she was not comfortable purposely hurting them just to test another spell. She did not get a chance to even look for an already bleeding animal, or more sick or wounded animals for that matter, as she was interrupted by a commotion somewhere near the yard's entrance. Lira slowly got closer, making sure she remained out of sight, and spotted a panting child with a giddy, excited look on his face.

"I am telling you, the prince is back," the boy almost shouted.

"He is returning to the same house where the sick children were." A prince coming here, to this part of the city? This must be Aric, because there was no way it would be Kavard. As the kids broke into a run, Lira decided to follow them. But before she did, she picked up a piece of filthy fabric that had once been a burgundy curtain. She shook it off for a bit, letting some of the dirt fall away, before draping it over her shoulders and casting.

"Yorad. Luneth. Velar." The piece of fabric immediately turned pristine. It would have almost looked new if not for the small tears and loose threads. Lira draped it over her head, hiding her distinctive orange hair, before taking off after the children.